ITunes 11 will be a refreshed version of the media library/player in many ways

Apple is putting a little more time into iTunes 11, pushing the release date from October to late November.

"The new iTunes is taking longer than expected and we wanted to take a little extra time to get it right," said Tom Neumayr, Apple spokesman. "We look forward to releasing this new version of iTunes with its dramatically simpler and cleaner interface, and seamless integration with iCloud before the end of November."

ITunes 11 will be a refreshed version of the media library/player in many ways, including an "up next" song feature, deeper iCloud integration, a redesigned mini player for album/song/artists searches, new storefront designs and new navigation in the way of album covers expanding to show songs in you library and the iTunes Music Store.

The last major iTunes update -- iTunes 10 -- came out in September 2010. The iTunes store has 26 million songs available for purchase, and 20 billion songs have been purchased over the last nine years.

Apple's decision to spend more time on iTunes 11 may reflect recent events within the company. It was recently revealed that Apple released its maps app ahead of completion in order to meet deadlines, and that ended in a catastrophe. The Apple Maps service was a failure in navigation and geography when it was initially released with iOS 6.

Also, earlier this week, it was announced that two key Apple executives were getting the boot -- Vice President of iOS Software Scott Forstall and head of Apple Retail John Browett. This shake-up put extra responsibilities on other Apple execs. Jony Ive, Apple's head of Industrial Design, will take over Human Interface (HI) for the company while Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, will take on Siri, Maps, the iTunes Store, the App Store, iCloud and the iBookstore. Furthermore, Bob Mansfield (who was supposed to be retiring), Apple's senior vice president of Mac and Devices Hardware Engineering, will lead a new group called "Technologies" for all of Apple's wireless teams while Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, will take over iOS and OS X.

They need to actually write a Windows interface instead of the disjointed ported mess they use now. But Apple has never really been good at writing functional interfaces. Too much focus on form over function.